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We recently came across a short article entitled The Importance of Sample Collection on the Pollution Engineering website.  While the article is fairly simplistic, it illustrates an important concept – namely that all of the real estate due diligence and site cleanup decisions which are based on environmental site assessments are only as good as the samples on which they are based.

Discolored soil in test pitAs the article states “gathering samples is not just a simple matter of haphazardly placing material in a jar and carting it down to the laboratory.” Considerable thought must be given to what the potential sources of contamination are, where the potential sources of contamination are, how the contaminants move in the environment and how these factors relate to the larger property.  It’s worth a read.